Oregon Senior Health Care Services Don't Require State Licensed CNA

I currently live in La Grande, Oregon, which is a very small town in rural Eastern Oregon and I have only been living here since June of 2007. In the very short period of time that I have been living in La Grande, I have earned my Oregon state license as a certified nursing assistant.

A certified nursing assistant is somebody who is part of a medical nursing team and is responsible for helping registered nurses with the care of elderly patients in either an assisted care living facility, a nursing home, a hospital, a long-term care setting, a hospice facility, or they do private in-home patient care.

The state of Oregon does not require people to become a licensed certified nursing assistant in order to work in certain assisted care living facilities, nursing homes, or even in certain hospice facilities.

Because of Oregon's current state law, there are thousands of people living in Oregon today who currently work as unlicensed health care aides. They do not have the professional training or certification of those who currently posses a state license as a certified nursing assistant.

As a state licensed certified nursing assistant, I have already spent a very short period of time working in both a long-term care rehabilitation center and in an assisted care living facility in La Grande.

I have spent one month working in a long-term care rehabilitation center and I spent 5 days working in an assisted care living facility. I can tell you from personal experience that working, as a certified nursing assistant in a long-term care rehabilitation center is a lot different then working in an assisted care living facility.

A long-term care rehabilitation center is a place where elderly patients are sent to try and recover from illnesses and/or injuries that prevent them from taking care of themselves independently inside their own home (such as a stroke, dementia, Alzheimer's, car accident, etc.).

An assisted care living facility is a place where elderly residents live to have unlicensed health care aides or state licensed certified nursing assistants assist them with their activities of daily living (ADL). Certain ADL activities include assisting an elderly person with taking a bath, brushing their teeth, feeding, putting on their clothes, assisting to and from the bathroom, taking a walk down a long hallway (also known as ambulation), and other daily hygiene and/or personal activities.

Working with elderly people and patients in a long-term care rehabilitation center, or an assisted care living facility, is never an easy job. It is very challenging and it always demands an enormous amount of your time, your energy and any natural talents for working with individual human beings who are suffering on a daily basis from a wide variety of psychological and physical illnesses.

It takes a great deal of compassion, sympathy, trust and perseverance to work as a certified nursing assistant with elderly people who consistently demand of your time and best efforts. You also have to make yourself available to work all hours of the day or night and you may have to work on weekends and holidays.

In addition, as a certified nursing assistant, you also may have to work with elderly people who are suffering from a wide variety of communicable diseases (such as HIV or known infection respiratory viruses) that require the use of special self-protection equipment, such as goggles, surgical masks, gloves and hospital gowns.

I currently have very limited experience working as a certified nursing assistant in both a long-term care rehabilitation center and an assisted care living facility in La Grande. However, I have learned during my time working as a certified nursing assistant that elderly people often suffer from a lack of professional care from unlicensed health care aides and even licensed certified nursing assistants who care more about their own personal lives then they do about the quality of care they actually give to the elderly.

There are many elderly patients who often worry or complain that younger certified nursing assistants, and younger unlicensed health care aides, do not really understand their special limitations or medical complications because of the youth of the aides and nursing assistants and their limited abilities and experiences in working with the elderly in a licensed health care facility.

Such complaints make it very challenging for new certified nursing assistants to provide the highest level of competent and quality care that is required of them. It takes time and effort to regain an elderly patient or resident's trust. It takes time so that they can rely upon you as a certified nursing assistant and know that you are qualified to assist them with their activities of daily living and you genuinely care about what happens to them and how they are treated as a human being with respect, freedom, liberties and patient rights.

It is often very depressing to see certain elderly patients or residents suffer from a lack of professional or competent medical care from unlicensed health care aides and certified nursing assistants who do not seem to care about the level of service they are providing for their elderly patients.

Unfortunately, the state of Oregon will not change its current state law about not requiring people to become a licensed certified nursing assistant in order to work in all assisted care living facilities, nursing homes, certain hospice facilities, or for doing private in-home patient care.

Changing Oregon's state law so that it requires any of its private citizens to become licensed certified nursing assistants in order to work in all assisted care living facilities, nursing homes, certain hospice facilities, or doing private in-home patient care, could place thousands of unlicensed health care aides in unemployment offices across the state. In turn, that could also temporarily jeopardize the level of quality care that is currently being received by elderly patients from unlicensed health care aides in Oregon health care facilities.

The answers for providing the highest quality of care and service to elderly patients or residents in Oregon from unlicensed health care aides may never be easily solved.

As the elderly population in Oregon continues to grow more dependent upon the professional skills of state licensed certified nursing assistants, can Oregon's current state health care system afford not to require its citizens to become licensed certified nursing assistants to provide quality nursing assistant care to its growing elderly population?

At what point will certain members of the elderly population of Oregon grow tired of having to receive inadequate care from unlicensed health care aides who are not qualified in providing the necessary skills of state licensed nursing assistant care?

As Oregon continues to tackle these important issues within its own state health care system, only time will tell what the future may hold as this story continues to unfold on a daily basis across the state of Oregon.

SOURCES: Current Oregon state laws & the Oregon State Board of Nursing